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Roman Catholic
Kathy Harty

PRESENT

• David Kriegh, St. Patrick’s Seminary & University, Convener
• Jennie Bartholomew, Sacred Heart Seminary & School of 

Theology
• Charles Bellinger, Brite Divinity School
• Kerrie Burn, University of Divinity
• Matina Ćurić, BETH/International Catholic Mission Society
• Clay-Edward Dixon, Graduate Theological Union
• Jack Frits, Benedictine University 
• Kathy Harty, Sacred Heart Seminary & School of Theology
• Ann Heinrichs, Catholic Theological Union
• Barnaby Hughes, Atla
• James Humble, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary
• Robert Huttmeyer, St. Meinrad Archabbey
• Alan Krieger, University of Notre Dame
• Pat Lawton, University of Notre Dame
• Jeff Mesch, Sacred Heart Major Seminary 
• Derek Rieckens, St. Michael’s Abbey
• Mary Linden Sepulveda, Seattle University
• Peter N. T. Snow, Ezra University / San Jose State University
• Connie Song, Atheneum of Ohio
• Christopher Spilker, Sacred Heart Major Seminary 
• Maria Stanton, Atla
• Stephen Sweeney, St. John Vianney Seminary
• Kris Veldheer, Chicago Theological Union
• Rebecca Villareal, Harvard Divinity School
• Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, Loyola Marymount University

The Atla Roman Catholic denominational group held their annual 



38  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

meeting on Friday, June 13, 2019 in Junior Ballroom D at Sheraton 
Vancouver Wall Centre. This year’s meeting included a few new faces, 
many familiar ones, and a few longtime members of the group were 
sadly missed. As always, the meeting is as much a fellowship event 
as one of business.

Following the customary introductions and a slightly belated 
approval of our minutes from last year’s gathering in Indianapolis, 
we reviewed our old business items. Once again it was a robust year 
for Catholic content at the annual conference, with many of the topics 
this year done in collaboration with members of the Association 
outside of our circle and on topics of universal interest to theological 
librarianship. We look forward to maintaining a large presence in 
Detroit at the 2020 conference. Pat Lawton gave us an update from 
the Catholic Library Association (CLA), which included introducing 
us to new their new president, Jack Fritts. In addition to promoting 
the upcoming virtual conference in October, she also updated us on a 
new undertaking of getting the content of the Catholic Periodical and 
Literature Index (CPLI) before 1980 into electronic form. Alan Krieger 
then provided an update from the Catholic Research Resources 
Alliance (CRRA), which included information on an upcoming 
strategic plan and information on partnerships with Atla and others 
on expanding services, access, and content. Finally, as a member of 
the working group tasked with evaluating possible data loss from the 
merger of CPLI with Atla’s Religion Database, I reported to the group 
that no problems were submitted to us for investigation. Therefore, 
our attention must now turn to working with the Atla staff to grow and 
effectively index Catholic content within the scope of the Atla Religion 
Database, including AtlaSerials and AtlaSerials PLUS.

Turning to new business, the group discussed how we can update 
our denominational home page on the Atla website through the new 
LibGuides interface. This is an opportunity not only to adapt our page 
to a new format but also to “freshen up” the content, which, while 
still informative, needs updating. I agreed to serve as a liaison to Atla 
for whatever content members would like to submit as beneficial 
to the whole group. Barnaby Hughes, who serves as an editor for 
Theological Librarianship, asked members to consider Catholic content 
to contribute to upcoming issues of the journal. Finally, Connie Song 



Denominational Group Meetings  39

proposed a new collaboration among members to create a best 
practices guide for weeding our collections, noting our distinctiveness 
from other libraries, both within and beyond the scope of Atla. This 
led to some discussion about pursuing mini-grants to invest in tools 
to analyze collections, such as OCLC’s GreenGlass.

Before wrapping up with our closing prayer from Jim Humble 
(who also generously opened the meeting with a prayer), we opened 
the floor to any news of retirements or other transitions among the 
members’ libraries. I reported the sudden passing of my supervisor, 
Dr. Karen Chan, a couple weeks ago. Beyond this news, we exhibited 
great stability in our organizations over the past year.

Following our meeting we posed for our hopefully-now-annual 
group photo which may or may not grace our denomination home 
page due to peculiar sunlight issues. After a period of time to freshen 
up and relax, we reassembled later that evening for our traditional 
group dinner at Provence Marinaside, during which time the Toronto 
Raptors won the NBA championship and the sun set after 9 pm. It was 
a uniquely Canadian experience.

Below are the minutes of our meeting, as recorded by Ms. Kathy 
Harty, our recording secretary. 

ROMAN CATHOLIC DENOMINATIONAL ANNUAL MEETING 
MINUTES
Opening prayer:  James Humble

Welcome: David Kriegh (chair)

I. Welcome and Brief Introductions

II. Approval of 2018 Minutes

III. Old Business
 A. Presentations Roundup

• The following members are presenting at this year’s 
conference. Please encourage others to present!
• James Humble (St. Charles Borromeo): Librarian as 

research advisor for MA students
• Pat Lawton (Univ. of Notre Dame): CRRA and the Catholic 

Portal at ten years



40  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

• Chris Spilker, Jeff Mesch (Sacred Heart Detroit): Library 
and IT collaborative models

• David Kriegh (St. Patrick’s): Ecotheology from a Roman 
Catholic perspective

• Charles Bellinger (Brite Divinity): Teaching on religion 
and violence

 B. CLA Report (Pat Lawton & Jack Fritts)
• Jack Fritts is the incoming president of the Catholic Library 

Association.
• CLA’s virtual Fall conference will be October 17–18, 2019. 

Call for presenters has gone out. The theme is “Catholic 
Librarianship: Building a Culture of Encounter.”

• The Spring conference will feature the awards presentations
• Bylaw revisions will be up for a vote this summer
• Working on membership, approaching library school 

students, support staff, and looking at a diocesan model
• CPLI update: Stephen Sweeney, Connor Flatz, Elyse Hayes, 

and Pat Lawton are working on a project between CLA and 
Atla to digitize the retained metadata of past (pre-1980) 
volumes of the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index 
and its predecessors. The data will be hosted by Villanova. 
Content owners are being sought to help digitize the data.

 C. CRRA Update (Alan Krieger)
• Updating links and resources in the non-portal site and 

creating a directory of libraries and archives
• Weighing the possibilities of other projects to include, such 

as parish histories
• Catholic Newspapers Archive is a searchable database; 

articles from 1920–1929 from the Catholic News Service 
available.

• Catholic Newspapers Online contains an alphabetical list 
with links to the sites.

• A strategic planning group has been formed to create a 
3-year plan. There are four goals, one of which is to seek 
external organizations to work with (e.g. Atla).

 D. CPLI/RDB Merger Update (David Kriegh)
• At the last meeting, a task force was created to investigate 



Denominational Group Meetings  41

reports of inaccurate results from searches in RDB 
compared to CPLI. The task force contacted AtlaRC list 
members and CLA members asking for data.

• No issues were reported or replicated. Therefore, there is 
no basis or information that Atla can use to investigate the 
problem. We need to realize that CPLI, as remembered by 
many, is basically gone. Atla is open to discussions regarding 
journals and magazines to add, since many resources we use 
might not normally be considered (e.g., Our Sunday Visitor).

IV. New Business
 A. Atla LibGuides Project (David Kriegh)

• Atla has approached us to think about working on a 
denominational LibGuide. Elyse Hayes offered as a start 
one that they had borrowed and revamped.

• David has volunteered to be the liaison to Atla for this 
project, but it would be good for the group to step up and find 
someone willing to update and continue the architecture of 
such a guide.

• Noted communications that Atla plans to discontinue 
support of the old guides when the website is overhauled. 
While subject areas are still pertinent and interesting, they 
could use some freshening up and Atla and associated 
groups may be seeking volunteers for this.

 B. Theological Librarianship
• Barnaby Hughes is looking for Catholic content such as 

reviews and articles for upcoming issues of Theological 
Librarianship. Please contact him with any ideas.

 C. Weeding Project
• Connie Song (Atheneum) is interested in putting together a 

best practices list for weeding theological collections, as our 
needs are much different from other library types. Stephen 
Sweeny, Jim Humble, and Mary Sepulveda have expressed 
interest in such a project. Others who may be interested 
should contact Connie Song.

 D. Retirements and Transitions
• Your prayers are asked for the repose of the soul of Dr. Karen 



42  ANNUAL YEARBOOK

Chan, who was killed in a head-on collision on her way to 
her new home in Texas. She was wrapping up her tenure as 
the Academic Dean of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University 
in Menlo Park and making plans to spend more time with 
family.

Closing Prayer: James Humble


